


Arcadium

by whateverhappens



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Minor Character Death, Title Change, thasmin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2020-12-31 18:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21150230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverhappens/pseuds/whateverhappens
Summary: It’s a spark from the warmest fire, appreciation and love in its purest form, and it’s only worn every now and again. Sometimes when exploring a new and wonderful place, or—in this case—when a stranger holds a precious heart in their hands.Yaz and the Doctor return Dan's necklace to his daughter. Set after Kerblam.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, sorry for being absent for so long. I had been writing the first few months after my last update, but life started getting really tough at the beginning of August and has only continued to snowball since. My mom passed away last week and I've been doing a lot of grieving and processing. Going back and reading my previous fics was oddly comforting throughout my mom's final weeks, so I figured I'd share something relatively new with you all.
> 
> This fic started out as a chapter in The Ones We Find, but as it continued to get longer, I realized it should probably be its own piece. It's not finished, and I unfortunately can't promise that it will ever be. But it seemed like a shame not to share at least part of what's written, considering I worked pretty hard on it and it's been collecting dust in my docs since May/June.
> 
> I feel odd sharing the news about my mom on here, but I can already feel myself wanting to explore the grief of her passing through my WIPs and it's probably good to give you a heads up that this will likely be coming through a lot in my future writing. Hopefully I can sit down and do some more work once I feel emotionally ready to. I might not be around here for a while, but I hope to be back sometime soon(ish). I hope you all are well and I hope to catch up on everyone's work that I've missed these past few months <3

Heavy feet scraped against the pavement as Yaz and the Doctor trudged through the chalky streets of Kandoka, kicking up puffs of dust each time their boots met the ground. A fluffy sea of pink and blue candy floss sprawled out above them as the moon peeked through the veil of daylight. Yaz looked up and felt her heart plummet into her gut again. They had just been there, on that moon. But now they were here, doing what they could to pick up the pieces that had been shattered beyond their control.

And in truth, there wasn’t much they could do. Or it didn’t feel like it, at least.

Yaz sighed as she clenched the silver heart pendant in her palm and stroked the engraved letters. _Dad,_ it said. She turned the word over in her mind. 

Dad.

Dan was a dad. 

_Was._

She could still hear his voice, always fast and light like a joke in true father fashion. Well, _almost_ always. Sometimes it sounded stern and weighted with concern, just like it had when he insisted on switching scanners with her. Surely his daughter had known that voice, too. Her heart sank again. She tried to tune Dan out by shoving the necklace into her back pocket, but he wouldn’t stop talking.

_“She made me this, lacquered with Arcadium. Outlast anything, that will. Including me.”_

And it had.

Yaz plastered her eyes shut and blinked a few times, trying to focus on what was in front of her. These streets had surely known his feet once; narrow, stone pathways enveloped by square homes that looked like they were made of concrete. They seemed uniform at first glance, and for the most part, they were. But after taking the time to really look at them, she realized the windows were different in each. An amalgam of geometric shapes had been splattered across the structures. Some windows were slanted, some wrapped around the corners, some claimed almost an entire wall, and occasionally, some houses didn’t have any at all.

The entire planet made her feel like she was swimming in beige. Sallow light from the two descending suns swallowed everything in an eerie yellow haze, like the kind that hung in the stillness before a storm. Yaz noticed the houses weren’t accompanied by vehicles or any equivalent, but she remembered seeing the glint of a rail cutting through the larger streets they had just emerged from. If she squinted hard enough, she thought it could maybe feel sort of like Earth.

Jagged mountains shooting up in the distance told her they were on the very edge of the territory. The Sandar District, she remembered the Doctor calling it. Apparently, it was one of the smaller districts on Kandoka, which Yaz was grateful for. 

When the Doctor patched Dan’s necklace into the console, she babbled off some coordinates and said that the TARDIS should land them outside of 82 Seedcliff Trace. But when the doors opened, it was made obvious by the swarms of people weaving in between skyscrapers that they hadn’t landed in a particularly residential area. They weren’t far off, the Doctor assured, so they chose to go the rest of the way on foot. Ryan and Graham opted to stay back and hold down the fort. This was perhaps to give the women some privacy, Yaz theorized, or perhaps because the loss of Grace still plagued their thoughts. Or maybe a little bit of both. 

Sometimes, the precision in the Doctor’s guesses left Yaz in awe, but this was not one of those times. The walk proved to be far longer than either of them had anticipated. Yaz didn’t actually mind the distance, though. It gave her time to ready herself, and she found that she needed that time more than she expected to.

They were on Seedcliff Trace now, and the house numbers etched onto the stones beneath them were slowly climbing up to the eighties. She felt her breaths grow more uneven with each step. Her chest tightened and throat felt like it was collapsing in on itself. Yaz wondered for a moment if the Doctor had failed to check for some deficiency in the air quality, but she knew that wasn’t the cause. The citizens of Kandoka were human, just like her. If they could breathe here, there was no reason she couldn’t, too.

She fixed her eyes on the ground, glaring at it as if it were glaring back. Scrutinizing her. Demanding to know why she couldn’t hold it together. She was an officer, after all. And Yaz knew without a doubt that she was good at her job. Give her people fighting and she could defuse it in a pinch. Give her someone struggling and she could always find the right words or let their words find her. But she never quite knew what to do with death. Losing someone was so different from losing yourself. Everyone can find themselves again, but someone you lost can never come back. And she didn’t know how to hold that finality in a way that could ever make sense. She had no control over it. No one did. It was just this lawless void that threatened to swallow everything and leave an overwhelming nothing in its wake.

Out of the corner of her eye, the Doctor noticed Yaz’s sunken frame and the sporadic rhythm of her breaths.

“We can go back, y’know, If it’s too much,” she offered warmly. “I can pop by later on my own.”

Yaz’s raised her head and kept her voice firm. “No, I should be there. I want to be there. And—” 

Her hand twitched, hesitating, but the Doctor didn’t notice. She had caught Yaz’s gaze and was studying her. Her eyes traced over each peak and canyon of the deep brown irises staring back, searching for what stopped her words. It wasn’t the kind of look that demanded an explanation, though. It was the kind that sought a balm for the pain, and the tenderness of it made Yaz unfold at the sight. She swallowed in a deep breath and silently reminded herself that it was just the two of them on a foreign planet. With that added layer of security calming her mind, she reached out and let her fingers find a home between the Doctor’s. 

“And you shouldn’t have to go alone,” she insisted.

The Doctor dipped her head into a nod and curled her mouth into a lopsided smile. Her eyes beamed as if those words were the kindest promise she’d ever heard. As they continued on, Yaz occasionally felt the woman give her hand a gentle squeeze, reassuring her that she was still there. It didn’t stop the waves of grief from crashing down on her, but it reminded her that she wasn’t the only one who knew them. That there was someone beside her, holding her through it, and neither of them were weathering it alone. She drank in this feeling of the Doctor at her fingertips while she could. There were no watchful eyes or dissecting stares. There was only them, together. And that felt like more than enough.

They walked for a little while longer until Yaz finally halted, glancing down at the number on the ground and back up to the house on her right.

“There it is,” she gulped.

The Doctor turned to study her again. “You ready?”

Yaz shook her head firmly. “Nope. But that’s not stopped us yet, has it?”

The Doctor’s lips curled into that same gentle grin, even softer this time around. “You make an excellent point, Yasmin Khan,” she said, giving her hand one last squeeze before letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this first part! Thanks for reading <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> I have an idea for a third and final chapter for this fic, but with everything going on, I'm not sure how soon I'll get around to writing it. I'm happy with the idea of the story stopping after this chapter as well, so I wanted to post this and give it some sort of ending, just in case.
> 
> Also, I decided to change the title to Arcadium upon working on this chapter. It seemed more fitting. Hope you enjoy!

Together, they made their way up the stone path that branched out from the street. There was a large window took up almost the entire front wall of the house, and a blurred silhouette moving behind the shade that caught Yaz’s eye. As they neared, she tried to focus on the drone of the all the machines of the house instead of the violent thrumming of her heart in her ears. Both of them were loud and incessant, but the machines were more bearable.

When they arrived at the entrance, Yaz reached out to knock on the silver metal door, but before her hand made contact, a powerful, monotone voice cut her off and echoed within the walls.

_“VISITOR. VISITOR. VISITOR.”_

She jerked back slightly and tried not to appear too startled. They stood listening to it for a few seconds until muffled steps from inside grew near. There was a high-pitched beep before the voice shut off and the door hissed open on its own accord. 

It revealed a tiny woman standing behind it whose features were warm and fierce and soft all at once. Her frame was slender and fit, with the curves of her toned arms visible through the rolled up sleeves of her beige jumper. Dark, springy coils spilled into her face and grazed the tops of her shoulders. Light danced gracefully off her skin, which was a rich, deep brown that sang in harmony with the gold apron wrapped around her. 

The two stared blankly at her as Yaz scoured her mind for the right words. The eyes of the stranger staring back looked like dark brown suns clouded by fog, sullen and puffy around the edges. Yaz felt a twinge of guilt upon realizing she’d likely been crying recently. There were good times and bad times for unexpected visitors, and this was definitely the latter. 

The woman’s gaze flickered suspiciously between the two of them. She wrung the back of her neck and let out a frustrated sigh. “Look, whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested,” she grumbled in a textured voice. Shaking her head in annoyance, she reached for a button that would presumably close the door.

“Wait! No. We’re not—” Yaz blurted out. The stranger hesitated, looking more confused than anything.

“We—uh, we’re sorry to intrude,” she continued, trying to calm her urgency. “Certainly don’t mean to be a bother, but…we’re trying to return this…” She dug in her pocket and shyly held out the pendant.

The woman fixed her gaze on the silver heart glinting in the setting sunlight, eyes wide in a state of shock as more tears began to pool in their corners. “H—how…?” she choked out, pressing a hand to the base of her throat as if to coax the rest of the words up.

Yaz looked back down at the necklace and ran her thumb over the letters again. “I knew Dan. Well, sort of. The day he died was my first day at Kerblam. When he went missing, I went to look for him and found it... He said his daughter made it. I wanted to bring it back to her. Tell her how much he loved her,” she explained.

A soft grin glowed against the woman’s skin. The fog in her eyes dissipated and the light beneath revealed itself. “You can come in, if you’d like. Give it to her yourself,” she said.

Yaz flashed a glance to the Doctor, who wasted no time in stepping forward and eagerly accepting the offer. “That’d be brilliant! We’d love to. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Mel,” she encouraged, standing aside to welcome them in.

“Lovely to meet you, Mel. My name’s the Doctor and this is my good friend, Yaz,” she said, playfully jabbing Yaz’s arm with her elbow as they stepped inside.

Mel’s brows twitched ever so slightly and a faint smirk rose on her lips. “Nice to meet you both,” she said as the door shut with another hiss. “Thanks for bringing that back to Gemma. She’ll be well chuffed to see it again. These last few days have been...well...they’ve been hard on her to say the least. Hasn’t been easy for any of us, really.”

“It never is. I’m so sorry,” the Doctor said sadly, holding Mel’s gaze with so much sincerity that it sent a dull ache through the pit of Yaz’s stomach. She could hear the question running through Mel’s mind—partly because her eyes were shouting it and partly because it was the same question running through hers.

_How do you know?_

But neither of them found it in themselves to ask just then. Instead, Mel puffed her chest out, cleared her throat, and muttered a gentle, “Thank you,” before leading them into the rest of the house.

The entrance corridor opened up to a small sitting room on their right. Two violet loveseats sat facing each other on speckled grey tiles and were surrounded by an assortment of oddly shaped house plants. The far wall was mostly taken up by a large mounted screen while digital frames cycling through family photos lined the others. Most photos featured Gemma, Mel, and a tall woman with a kind face and long red hair. A sleek, silver ring on Mel’s left hand became apparent to Yaz, and she found that she was considerably more at ease as a result.

Mel mused aloud as they turned down a narrow hallway, her voice heavy and dragging itself through each word. “Y’know, it’s been years since Dan lived here, but the house has been..._quieter_ since we found out. Gem’s spent most of her time holed up in her room reading. We took a walk earlier, just to get her out for a bit, but she went straight back to it when we got home. It was like this when he first moved out. Can’t say I blame her, though. Lost my own dad a few years back. It’s tough enough as an adult, can’t imagine what it feels like at six years old.” 

“It’s hard, losing someone. Feels like losing part of yourself along with them,” the Doctor agreed, slipping into a faraway look that snapped back to the room almost instantly. “Reading’s good, though. Books are great. Brilliant, actually! Helped me defeat a werewolf in 19th century Scotland once—” 

The confused grimace on Mel’s face put a stop to her babbling. The Doctor’s eyes softened as she leaned to the side and rested a hand on Mel’s shoulder. “Erm—sorry. Scratch that last bit. What I mean to say is, that’s her way of sorting through it. She’ll get there, in the end. It just takes some time.” 

“You talk about loss like it’s an old friend,” Mel stated as she studied her, searching for an answer to her unasked question. The Doctor only breathed a laugh and gave her shoulder a quick pat before pulling away. 

”That’s certainly one way to put it,” she said under her breath, focusing on the space ahead of her. 

Yaz stayed quiet as they advanced down the corridor, unable to entertain any exchange as she stumbled into her own nagging guilt again. It circled her like a vulture, devouring her and spitting out her bones with each bitter breath. Every second was a harsh reminder that she was the one summoned to the Triple Nines back at Kerblam. That Dan’s simple act of switching scanners was the only reason she was here instead of him. He was a warehouse worker like Ryan, a man just doing his job, and one much safer than her own. It was funny, she thought, how one step forward could leave such a sour taste in her mouth knowing it should be someone else’s foot hitting the ground.  


The chorus of their steps echoed in the emptiness until they approached a slant of light jutting out from a cracked door on the right. Yaz squeezed the pendant, forcing her mind into PC Khan mode as Mel eased the door open with delicate knocks.

“Gemma?” she crooned. “You have some visitors, Gem.” 

Yaz peeked around the frame to see a small child sitting on the floor next to her bed. She was curled up with her chin tucked into her knees, wearing a denim pinafore over a plum jumper. Her toes wiggled beneath rainbow socks that rose halfway up her shin, leaving tan skin exposed above them. Long, bronze curls veiled her face as she lost herself in a story. Her bed was an unkempt jumble of colorful sheets and pillows. Various stuffed animals were strewn throughout the room, overflowing baskets and shelves, with one grey bird plush laying on the ground near her. Yaz wondered why there were no bookshelves, considering how much she seemed to enjoy reading, but then realized the girl was clutching a tablet in her lap.

“Gem,” Mel called out again, stepping forward, but none of her actions seemed to be enough to rouse the girl from her screen. She knelt down once she reached her and tried again.

“Hey! Kandoka to Gemma,” she teased, waving her hand in the girl’s eyeline and finally causing her head to shoot up. “You’ve got some visitors, love.” She gestured her head toward the women in the door frame.

“Can I finish this part? _Pleeease?_ It’s just getting good,” she pleaded, meeting Mel’s disapproving look.

“Ooooh, what book is it?!” The Doctor blurted out as she bounded into the room, Yaz in tow.

“Wagon’s Escape,” Gemma answered shyly, staring up at the strange blonde woman settling on the floor near her.

“I love the Wagon series! That’s one of my favorites, too. What page are you on? Nine? Oh, she’s right, Mum, it is just getting good.”

“You’ve read it?” Gemma scrunched her face up at the woman, perplexed.

“‘Course I have! Read all ten volumes!” said the Doctor proudly.

Mel squinted. “But they’ve only just released the fifth one...”

“I’m a _very_ fast reader.” the Doctor said, winking at Gemma. The girl hunched her shoulders and giggled softly into her hand. She had a precious sort of voice, high-pitched and gentle, the kind that belonged in a cartoon. Yaz watched Mel glance back and forth between the two, suspicious at first, but eventually surrendered a smile as Gemma laughed. There probably hadn’t been much of that lately, she guessed.

When the room fell quiet again, Mel shifted her focus. “Gem, these nice people have something they want to give you.” 

“Right, yeah,” the Doctor said, dread rising in her voice. “Gemma, I’m the Doctor and this is my good friend, Yaz.” She screwed her head up toward Yaz, who was now painfully aware that she was the only one still standing. Quickly, she sucked in a deep breath and knelt between the other women them as the Doctor continued. “We—well, mostly Yaz, knew your dad. We’re so sorry about what happened. I can imagine how much you miss him.” 

“I didn’t know him for very long, but he talked mostly about you,” Yaz added, leaning in and leveling herself with Gemma’s eyeline. “He worked really hard so you could be happy, and he wore this all the time to remember how much he loved you.” 

There’s a certain look children offer when they are gifted something special—eyes wide, mouth agape, and words nowhere in sight. And then there is something beyond that; an expression that shatters any barriers of age and experience, one that feels like an unending string connecting every living being. It’s a spark from the warmest fire, appreciation and love in its purest form, and it’s only worn every now and again. Sometimes when exploring a new and wonderful place, or—in this case—when a stranger holds a precious heart in their hands. 

“He told me you made it,” Yaz said as she handed the necklace to her. 

Gemma nodded as she clutched it tightly. “Mhmm,” she murmured. “We learned about arcadium in school. My teacher said it outlasts everything. I made it so he wouldn’t forget about me when he was away.”

“It’s beautiful, Gemma. He loved it, and he certainly never forgot you.” Yaz said gently. “I think he would’ve wanted you to have it. Reckon you can keep it safe for him?” Tears that had been welling in Gemma’s eyes finally spilled over onto her freckled cheeks. She nodded very seriously and held it close to her chest, almost hugging it.

“I miss him.” she whimpered.

“I know, love,” Mel said, scooting closer and wrapping her daughter in a hug.

The room was quiet for a few minutes while Gemma sniffled into her mother’s side. They gave her the space to sit with her sorrow, but an emptiness loomed over them as they did, knowing words eventually needed to be spoken during a time where their comfort would be rendered powerless by grief. Yaz glanced over at the Doctor, who was looking at Gemma almost as if she were a mirror instead of a person.

Finally, though speaking seemed fruitless, the Doctor spoke anyway.

“D’you know what helps me when I’m missing someone?”

Gemma looked up, and Yaz witnessed a desperation that definitely did not belong in the eyes of a six year old—eyes that beg, _“Please, make this stop,”_ and dread weighed her body down like stones knowing that it never truly would. 

“I try to remember all of our time together,” the Doctor explained. “What made them smile and laugh, their favorite smells and snacks, and everything they said and did. I carry those memories everywhere I go so they’re always close to me.” Her voice stalled for a moment, and then she willed herself to continue. “Sometimes I even talk to them like they’re still around, if I’m being honest.”

Suddenly, Gemma sat up as her gaze drifted to the stuffed bird laying near her.

“There’s a bird at my school. It showed up on the playground the other day,” she said softly. “It looks kind of like that one, but it’s brown and fluffy and sings really pretty songs. It gets scared if I get too close, but it’ll stay near me if I sit down. It just hops around and chirps and looks at me. It doesn’t fly away until I leave or someone else scares it. But it keeps coming back, every day. My friends say it’s just a bird, but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like Dad. Like he’s talking to me.”

“I tell her that her friends wouldn’t hear him anyway,” Mel said, lovingly stroking her daughter’s hair. 

“Your mum’s right,” the Doctor agreed. “He’d be speaking a language only you can understand.” 

“D’you really think that?” Gemma asked. “That he’s talking to me?”

The Doctor leaned in close and whispered as if she were sharing classified knowledge, “The universe is strange and remarkable, Gemma. Always changing, always growing, and always surprising. There are possible things and impossible things, but d’you know what? I’ve seen them both. As many books as I’ve read, as many places I’ve been, there’s still so much I don’t understand. But sometimes, I think it’s less about what I know and more about how I feel. Seems like you’ve got that bit figured out already.” 

She coaxed the necklace from Gemma’s hands and placed it gently around her neck, holding the heart up to her eyeline. 

“If he’s talking, don't stop listening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and thanks for such kind words on the previous chapter <3  
If I can get around to writing a third chapter, I definitely will.


End file.
